The Water and the Sky
by Ivory Novelist
Summary: Sherlock and Lestrade have an intimate moment in the bathroom. Also, their relationship takes ambiguity to a whole new level. (They're cool with it.) Asexual!Sherlock/Gray-Asexual!Lestrade in a romantic friendship. Post-Reichenbach.


AN: I was in a happy mood today and a part of this came to me, so I wrote a fic.

Asexual!Sherlock. Gray-Asexual!Lestrade. Romantic friendship/hella ambiguous nonsexual relationship.

Post-Reichenbach.

* * *

The Water and the Sky

* * *

When Sherlock gets home from Beirut, Lestrade's waiting for him. Neither of them can hold back a bright, genuine smile the minute they see each other. Sherlock's blue eyes twinkle as he unwraps his scarf, unbuttons his coat, and takes off his gloves. Lestrade's still dressed from work: a navy blue suit and the pale gray silk shirt that Sherlock insisted he buy. The DI's sitting on his living room sofa, listening to a record and sipping scotch. The record's one of Sherlock's, and the younger man recognizes the track immediately: Tartini's Violin Sonata in G Minor, the Larghetto movement. Soon as Sherlock hangs up his coat on the wall rack, he crosses the space between them but doesn't sit down, standing opposite of Lestrade on the other side of the coffee table with his hands on narrow hips. His travel bag sits forgotten on the floor by the door of the flat.

"I wasn't sure whether you'd be at the airport or not," Sherlock says, the muscles in his face still twitchy with happiness.

"You told me you didn't need to be picked up, so here I am," says Lestrade. "How was your flight?"

"Fine. How are you?"

"Good. Just having a drink to relax. You want one?"

"No, thank you," says Sherlock, who rarely drinks. He does like the taste and smell of Bell's scotch now, only because it reminds him of Lestrade.

"How about a cuppa?" Lestrade asks. "I can put the kettle on."

Sherlock shakes his head. "I don't need anything at the moment….. I'm—it's good to see you."

Lestrade smiles open-mouthed. "I would ask if you missed me, but I know better than that. Did Beirut give you trouble?"

"Not as much as I'd hoped." Sherlock surveys the living room and the rest of the flat from where he stands, as if expecting to see some change Lestrade's made or discerning exactly what the other man's been doing the last ten days he was alone. "Have you got anything on?"

"Christ, Sherlock, you've only just finished a case. Catch your breath for a bit."

"I'm only curious," says Sherlock.

"A woman was stabbed in her flat last week, multiple times. No idea who the man was, it was dark, he was masked….. He didn't steal anything. She survived, if that matters to you."

"It doesn't. Any leads?"

Lestrade shakes his head, tasting the flavor of the scotch in his mouth after he swallows. "Not yet. Aren't you going to sit down?"

Sherlock looks tense standing there, full of pent up energy.

Then, it occurs to Lestrade, who leans forward to set his glass down on the table. "I'm sorry," he says, feeling daft. "Do you want a hug?"

"God, yes," says Sherlock. He waits right where he is for Lestrade to get up and come to him.

They wrap their arms around each other tight, Sherlock pulling Lestrade as close as he can and shutting his eyes with relief and satisfaction. The younger man's grown so accustomed to the regular touching in their relationship over the last few months that ten days without it grated on his nerves more than he ever would've anticipated.

Lestrade smiles into Sherlock's bony shoulder because Sherlock smells like cold air and his ridiculously expensive cologne and more London than Beirut, and he's missed this too, the touching.

Lestrade smells like Lestrade. Sherlock's senses are too overwhelmed by the hug to pick the scent apart and pinpoint its individual elements. Lestrade smells exactly the way he should, not like the over-bleached sheets on Sherlock's twin bed in the Beirut hotel or the blood of the Lebanese man Sherlock had to punch out in a darkened backyard full of dead of rose bushes or the infant sitting in its mother's lap across the aisle from Sherlock on the plane. Lestrade smells like comfort.

"I was going to wait until after dinner, but I think I'll show you now," Lestrade says, beginning to let go of Sherlock.

"Show me what?" Sherlock says as he looks at his friend again.

Lestrade smiles and says, "Wait here."

Sherlock does, while Lestrade disappears into what must be the master bathroom. The door's shut, and Sherlock is almost certain he hears a faucet running.

Lestrade lives in a one-bedroom flat on Red Lion Street in Bloomsbury. The flat's interior is painted almost entirely white, with dark wood floors. Sherlock still isn't sure he likes the brightness of it, after living in the Baker Street flat with John. 221B was full of color, from the wallpaper to the furniture to the surplus of unnecessary decoration. Lestrade's sense of interior design is surprisingly sparse and simple. He's impressively clean and neat and hasn't collected excess possessions in the last few years since he moved into this flat. Sherlock's theorized that maybe this isn't really Lestrade's style, only a post-divorce sense of starting over bound to give way to the DI's true personal taste.

"Okay," Lestrade says, coming back out into the living room. He isn't wearing his suit jacket anymore. "Ready."

"For what?" says Sherlock.

Lestrade takes his hand—Sherlock feels a surge of warmth travel up his arm and into his heart—and pulls him down the little corridor to the master bathroom.

Lestrade's switched the electric lights off. A tall, fat, white candle burns on the windowsill. The walls and the ceiling, which were white the last time Sherlock saw them, are a deep and dark blue now. Hundreds of tiny white dots, some of them bigger than the rest, are scattered across the blue. They're glowing, or Sherlock's eyes fool him. Stars. He takes fifteen seconds to realize they must be stars.

"You managed this in ten days?" Sherlock says, his voice lowered as if not to disturb the room.

Lestrade grins. "What do you think?"

"I appreciate the color, it does make me forget the rest of your flat's a hospital wing, but….. why?"

"I don't know," Lestrade says softly. "I thought it was a fun idea."

It isn't until Lestrade's nearly tugged him all the way to the bath rub that Sherlock realizes the tub's been filled.

"What are we doing?" the younger man asks, suddenly on alert because his brain suggests an impending loss of his clothes and Lestrade's and that can only mean sex and oh, God, is this a romantic gesture? Sherlock will not have sex, he won't, and he was so sure that Lestrade wasn't interested in that mess either and only liked to copulate with women when in the mood.

"Take off your jacket," Lestrade says, toeing off his shoes.

"What? No."

"All right. But don't complain to me if it gets a bit ruined."

"Why would it—"

Lestrade, still holding Sherlock's hand, climbs into the tub with his clothes and his socks and his belt still on. He's pulling Sherlock in with him before the younger man can process what's happening. They crash down into the tub together, waves of water sloshing over the lip and onto the floor, and Lestrade starts to laugh at the sight of Sherlock in complete shock, blinking like a toddler suddenly tripped and fallen to the ground for the first time. Lestrade's lying on his back in the bath tub, and Sherlock's body covers his because they're both tall, broad men in a space not meant to hold them. Lestrade's head rests in the curved end of the tub and he has one arm around Sherlock's waist.

The candle flame flickers.

"Are you high?" Sherlock asks.

Lestrade laughs harder.

"These are three hundred dollar _leather _shoes!" Sherlock squirms around in the water, reaching for his feet and throwing the sopping shoes across the bathroom. When he looks back at Lestrade, his annoyance melts away, and he smiles softly at the DI. Lestrade doesn't laugh enough. Sherlock still hasn't figured out the right formula, but he has every intention of conducting a thorough analysis because he wants to make Lestrade laugh more often.

"Welcome home," the older man says, looking at Sherlock with pure and complete adoration.

Sherlock's heart swells. He wants to be looked at like that every day for the rest of his life. Even more than he wants to be told what a genius he is.

"Lestrade, if this is your idea of romance—"

"Romance? Who said anything about bloody romance? This is just….. something nice. For you. And for me. I guess mostly for me because I'm sure if you made it to your mid-thirties without knowing the earth moves 'round the sun, you have no appreciation for stars."

"If you wanted stars, you could've just gone outside," says Sherlock.

"Yeah, but I can't take a bath outside now, can I?"

Sherlock almost rolls his eyes. Instead, he plops his head down onto Lestrade's shoulder, ignoring that half of his face getting wet.

Neither one of them is sure when it happened, but at some point within the last eight months, Sherlock and Lestrade have become more than business associates with casual friendship on the side. Maybe it's because John's engaged to Mary Morstan, maybe it's because Sherlock and Lestrade were both unfathomably happy to see each other again after three long years of Sherlock's pseudo-death, or maybe this was always in the cards and just needed the right timing to fall into place. It definitely has something to do with the fact that Sherlock's an asexual with no interest in losing his virginity, and the corresponding fact that Lestrade is essentially a gray-asexual (Sherlock's term, not Lestrade's) who's utterly hopeless with women.

It was sneaky, this change in their relationship. It seems to have happened while Sherlock and Lestrade were busy bickering over something or working together. One minute, they're just two blokes who both like to solve crimes, and the next, Sherlock's spending more and more time at Lestrade's flat, then sleeping in his bed with him, then letting Lestrade make him breakfast and cup a hand around the back of his neck at the kitchen table.

Lestrade buries his fingers in Sherlock's mop of dark curls and inhales deeply, closing his eyes.

"I was afraid you wanted sex," Sherlock says, boneless on top of Lestrade.

Lestrade snorts. "Do you know me at all?"

"If you were anyone else, this whole set-up couldn't be anything else. You should've thought of that before you asked me take off my jacket."

"Sorry. I didn't scare you, did I?"

Sherlock doesn't answer.

Lestrade runs his hand down Sherlock's spine, rustling the water. "Sherlock."

"Hmm?"

"What are we?"

"You're referring to the nature of our relationship."

"Yeah. I've been thinking about it since you left on your trip. I'll be damned if I know the answer."

Sherlock doesn't speak for a long stretch, relishing the sensation of Lestrade's hand creeping up his back underneath his suit jacket, fingertips pressing into Sherlock. When he opens his eyes again, he sees the reflection of the white candle burning in the mirror above the sink. "Do we need a word for it?" he says.

"I guess not," says Lestrade. "I'd just like to know what the rules are."

"Rules?"

"Yeah. Apart from no sex. Are we…. is this…. exclusive? Do you care if I have sex with other people? Or….. do the same things we do with other people? Do you expect something from me?"

Sherlock lifts and turns his head to look at Lestrade, their faces close enough that they can feel each other's breath. "I don't care what you do without me," says Sherlock. "I only care that we continue to progress in the direction we're headed."

Lestrade looks at him and doesn't answer or nod. He doesn't know if what he feels for Sherlock is romantic or what. It's different. It's good. He was hoping Sherlock was less in the dark but apparently not. "Where do you think that progress leads?"

"I don't know," Sherlock says after a quiet beat.

Lestrade has never seen or heard Sherlock Holmes admit to that so earnestly. "I can't picture dating you," he says. "The way I've dated women."

"Neither can I. But that's probably because I've never dated anyone."

Silence.

"I'm not even physically attracted to men," says Lestrade. "And I'm not talking about sex. I'm saying, just basic admiration of the male form."

"I don't care about anybody's form," Sherlock says.

"Right."

They're quiet for a few beats.

"Lestrade….."

"Sherlock?"

Sherlock hesitates. Then he says, "I need to know if you love me."

Lestrade stares at him. Shock blank. "Bloody hell," he says when he finds his voice. "Don't waste your time getting to the point."

"I'm not talking about romantic love. I mean love in general. Any kind. I need to know if any of them apply."

Lestrade searches Sherlock's blue eyes as if they can tell him about his own feelings. "Sherlock—I have no idea what this is or what I want it to be….. But yes. I do think I love you. In some mysterious way that doesn't make any sense."

Sherlock looks into Lestrade's eyes without any visible reaction. Lestrade's chest is tight with anticipation. He didn't need Sherlock to love him or tell him that he loves him before, but now that Lestrade's admitted to his own feelings, he's hoping for reciprocation.

But instead of speaking again, Sherlock cranes his neck forward until the tip of his nose brushes against Lestrade's cheek, and the older man's whole body tenses because he doesn't know what Sherlock's trying to do. Lestrade closes his eyes like a child waiting for a shot at the doctor's office. Sherlock presses his lips to the very corner of Lestrade's mouth or the skin right next to it, Lestrade isn't sure.

"I love you, Lestrade," Sherlock murmurs. "I think I have for a long time."

Lestrade's got his hand pinned to Sherlock's lower back underneath the younger man's jacket that floats on the surface of the water now. He's holding Sherlock to him, and Sherlock has his arms wrapped around Greg's torso. Their muscles are starting to cramp up. They look at each other in the dark beneath the stars painted on the ceiling, a thick silence filling the room and the flat and perhaps even London.

"I won't do that again, if you don't want me to," Sherlock says.

"What?" Lestrade says dumbly.

"Give you a kiss. I just felt compelled to..."

"It's all right. I-I don't mind."

"You're sure?"

Lestrade nods, surprised at himself. He doesn't want to snog Sherlock, but that kiss was…. nice. Maybe…. "Can I—can I return the gesture?"

Sherlock looks uncertain for a beat, then says, "As long as you keep your mouth shut."

Lestrade tilts his head forward, chin on his chest, cradles the back of Sherlock's head in his hand and touches his lips to Sherlock's. The kiss is light but it lingers. They make eye contact and can't think of a single word.

Finally, Sherlock says, "I hope you have clean towels," and leaps out of the tub with feline agility, careful not to slip on the floor in his socks. He walks out into the hallway dripping water everywhere and finds the linen closet where Lestrade keeps the clean towels.

"Don't get the wood floors wet!" Lestrade hollers, still reclining in the bath. He stares up at the constellation Cygnus. The Swan.

When he finally emerges from the bathroom wrapped in his robe, Sherlock's dressed in his pajamas and curled up on the living room sofa with his favorite blanket. His wet clothes are in a pile on the rug. Lestrade looks at it, sighs, and says, "What do you want for dinner?"

"I don't care. But I'll take that cup of tea now."

Lestrade brews the tea, and after they finish drinking it, they stretch across the sofa and cuddle under the blanket until Lestrade decides to order take-away.


End file.
